I went ahead and signed both Kevin Steen and El Generico to developmental deals. As I said earlier, I was hoping to let them gain experience on the independents for two or three years, but they just weren't getting enough work in Quebec to improve their craft.

We still aren't big enough for the USA Network to be interested in signing new deals or renewing existing ones, so Renaissance will be remaining on FX for at least the next few months.

Aja Kong hurt her jaw during her match with Alexis Laree on November 30th, but thankfully the injury was not serious.

I've agreed to a pay per appearance deal with Kaori Yoneyama. Yoneyama, formerly with GAEA and FMW, came to the US on excursion earlier this year but hasn't been booked nearly as often as she'd hoped, though she did work one set of tapings for us back in May in an enhancement role. That will be her role now as well; I'll be using her specifically as a moderately talented worker for our featured female talent to defeat.

Jason Jett, jobber extraordinaire, came to my office demanding a pay raise. I laughed in his face. He wasn't happy about it. Then a week or so later, CM Punk and Chris Candido both said they were impressed with his progression as a worker. Fair enough.

Konnan has been trying to convince me to give Psychosis a bigger push, saying he could be a really charismatic Cruiserweight champion.

CM Punk told me he thinks Daffney's unique look and character could turn her into a money-drawing top heel on Renaissance, and I should push her hard. He thinks Melissa Anderson could be a big star on the babyface side as well.

Apparently the locker room didn't enjoy the Cash vs. Elix Skipper match very much. Dustin Rhodes told me afterwards that he thinks Skipper can't connect with the audience and has limited upside, and Shane Douglas said much the same thing about Cash. Poor guys can't catch a break.

Scott Steiner let me know that the "Give Dragons a Chance!" storyline "sucks", and said the fans will never care about Kaz Hayashi and I might as well fire him. Maybe he's just trying to get himself paired up with Stacy Keibler.

I didn't notice anything special when I put Trinity with Made in Italy in a dark match, but Dawn Marie and Tony Mamaluke seemed to be a great pairing, so I think we've found our answer there.

RVD was in some clear pain after his match with TAKA on the December 9th Nitro, when he hit the mat hard coming off of the top rope. I won't sugarcoat it: he bruised his ass. Nothing that a few days of rest wouldn't cure.

Air Paris asked for a raise. I said no. He's mad.

Chris Candido wanted a pretty substantial raise. I'm still upset with him for his drug test failures, so I told him I wasn't going to give him any raise until I was confident he was clean. He was very angry about that, which isn't going to do him any favors.

Mark Henry's finally coming back to the main roster. He's been down in OVW since before I bought WCW, but I guess they've decided he's improved as much as he's going to down there and it's time to give him another shot.

NOAH's Thunder of Heart PPV took place on November 27th. No Heavyweight title match this month. Instead, Misawa and Yoshinari Oagawa beat Kenta Kobashi and reigning champion Akira Taue in an excellent main event. That was the highlight of the night, but Jun Akiyama over Tatsuhito Takaiwa in the semi main was very good as well. This wasn't quite their best PPV of the year, but it was close.

New Japan held their annual Super Grade Tag League, or G1 Climax Tag League, or whatever you want to call it. Riki Chosu and Yuji Nagata won the tournament this year, beating Tatsumi Fujinami and Osamu Nishimura in the finals. That match wasn't bad, and it was a pretty good show overall.

Their final PPV of the year, called Strength Test, was held on December 3rd. Osamu Nishimura made his second IWGP Heavyweight title defense in a win over veteran Riki Choshu. That was the worst IWGP title match in about a year and a half, so it's probably a good thing it was only the semi main event. The main event saw Yuji Nagata and Tatsumi Fujinami retain the IWGP Tag titles against Masahiro Chono and Manabu Nakanishi in a match that wasn't great, but was at least slightly better than Nishimura's match. Former champions TenKoji had a better tag match in the midcard against Kazuyuki Fujita and Hiroshi Tanahashi, but the company also put on one of their best matches all year when Koji Kanemoto beat Dr. Wagner Jr. in an exciting junior heavyweight style match. If that had been the main event instead of the second match of the night, this show could have been great. Instead it was a below average PPV by their current standards.

Jushin Liger hurt his knee during a match against Pirata Morgan in the Mexican branch of Toryumon, and he'll apparently be out for a couple of months. Something like this was bound to happen with the hectic schedule Jushin works, making appearances for Toryumon and even longtime NJPW rival All Japan in addition to his longtime home base. I think Inoki should've locked Liger down to an exclusive deal a long time ago.

All Japan wrapped up their World's Strongest Tag Team League on December 7th. Genichiro Tenryu and Taiyo Kea won the annual tournament, beating former Varsity Club members Steve Williams and Mike Rotunda in the finals. Williams and Rotunda won the tournament in 2000, the last time it was held.

TNA's 'Seven Deadly Sins' event on December 5th was pretty newsworthy. Their own titles largely took a backseat to those of the NWA on this show, as there were three NWA-branded title matches. 'Mantaur' Bruiser Mastino won the NWA National Heavyweight title from the Blue Boy in the semi main event (is that a rib?), but the real story came in the main event, where Matt Sydal upset Shinya Hashimoto to become the new NWA World Heavyweight Champion. Matt's a pretty agile guy and a promising prospect, but I doubt Zero One (aka the most prominent member of the Alliance) is very happy about the title being taken off of owner/top star Hashimoto and put on an unknown commodity like Sydal. The match itself was a pretty good one by the standards of TNA, and thus this was the best show in their short existence so far.

The Combat Sports Federation (CSF) has gone out of business. They'd been open for a few years and never really did anything noteworthy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by michgcs

Bring him in for Renaissance! Women's GM Shinsuke Nakamura may be a waste of his talents but at least you'd have him and he'd get a chance to improve his acting and mic skills LOL

The point is that he's only active in Japan, so I literally cannot negotiate with him until I hit a certain level (I think it's International, but it might be Global.)